Rangeland Biodiversity and Climate Variability: Supporting the Need for Flexible Grazing Management

Abstract

Resting or grazing exclusion is an effective practice widely adopted to restore degraded, arid rangelands. To understand its effect on plant diversity, we studied Hill’s diversity indices during two growing seasons (2017–2019). The experiment consisted of a three-level factorial design with four plant communities subjected to different resting durations (one, two, and three years) compared to continuously grazed areas (control). The results showed that rainfall plays an important role in arid rangeland restoration. Under favorable conditions, one-year grazing exclusion considerably enhanced species richness and evenness diversity compared to longer resting durations under dry to average rainfall conditions. The decision to how long livestock grazing exclusion would last should not be decided upfront as it depends on the climatic and the site-specific conditions. The findings of this study will have vital management implications for development agencies. Knowing that short grazing exclusion with adequate rainfall amount and distribution could be enough and offers a cost-effective technical option to ensure the sustainable restoration of arid rangeland. This flexible grazing management would also be more acceptable by the pastoral communities. Longer resting periods could have detrimental effects on arid rangeland vegetation, in addition to adding more pressure on the remaining rangeland areas open to grazing.

Benefits of Short-Duration, High-Stocking Rate Opportunistic Grazing on Arid Rangelands During Favorable Conditions

“…Therefore, it is important to base grazing plans on the state of the vegetation cover rather than simply on the length of resting times. This result supports findings highlighting the need for flexible grazing management depending on weather and climate variability (Louhaichi et al, 2021a) and offers an opportunity to develop grazing strategies that exploit these results.…”

“…Rangeland management strategies can be used as a tool to improve sustainability (Louhaichi et al, 2019(Louhaichi et al, , 2021a. A growing number of studies have shown the positive contributions of grazing and how it can be a cost-effective practice for enhancing productivity, species diversity, and ecosystem health (Hodgson et al, 2005;Dorrough et al, 2007;Kohyani et al, 2008).…”

Effect of the Harvest Season of Anthyllis henoniana Stems on Antioxidant and Antimicrobial Activities: Phytochemical Profiling of Their Ethyl Acetate Extracts

“…Its blooming phase begins in late winter [4]. Southern Tunisia has an arid Mediterranean climate with a long-term annual rainfall of 80 mm concentrated in the growing season between September and April and a dry season lasting about 4 months from May to August [5]. It was previously reported that the content of secondary plant metabolites is not stable and depends on the growth stage, the part of the plant and the characteristics of the environment.…”